


It Cannot Wait, I'm Sure

by khasael



Series: Hale and Hearty [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort/Angst, Feels, Hurt Derek, Hurt Derek Hale, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, I Love You, Love Confessions, M/M, Marriage, Monster of the Week, Worried Derek, Worried Stiles Stilinski, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khasael/pseuds/khasael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek was kind of hoping that nothing bad was going to happen from now on and he and Stiles could live happily ever after... but apparently the monsters of Beacon Hills didn't get the memo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Cannot Wait, I'm Sure

**Author's Note:**

> It's in the tags, but I thought I'd stress that there is canon-typical violence in this installment, since I know some people read this series for the fluff. There is a fair amount of angst in this bit, but I do promise that no installment in this series will end with either of the boys in any sort of angsty state--this one included!

Everything is fire and pain, but that's not even the worst of it.

It hurts to breathe, every small movement is agony throughout his body, but Derek keeps fighting, because the alternative is so much worse. He can't give up now, no matter how much his body wants to, because he has to—he has to _know_.

It was bad just a few minutes ago, but Derek would take that over this any day. Ten minutes ago, maybe a little more, he and Isaac and Scott were crouched in some dank, miserable cave, listening to Stiles and Lydia just outside, chanting something that sounded a little like Latin to Derek, but not quite. The sound of Stiles's heartbeat echoed through Derek's head, fast and hard, the scent of fear and determination pouring out of both human and banshee alike. One look at Scott's clenched fists and red eyes told him he was getting the same basic experience; to Scott's left, Isaac was just looking more and more pissed off the further he healed from the fall in their haste to get in here, the bones in his leg knitting together in a way that was audible to Derek's ears.

Derek heard the whisper of something deadly slicing through the air a moment later, a thin whistle that was quickly drowned out by steady gunshots, and Derek knew that was the Argents, arriving from the west. Scott's eyes flickered, and Derek saw his focus go elsewhere, probably to Allison, and Derek couldn't blame him—not with the way he was so attuned to Stiles, himself. He could hear the creature hiss each time it was struck, and scream in a way that made Derek's head throb when an apparent hit from Allison timed with the peak of the crescendo of whatever Stiles and Lydia were still chanting. Whatever they were doing, it seemed to be working.

And then it changed.

There was a rush of sounds Derek could only describe as chaos, but the way Stiles's heartbeat suddenly picked up, slamming so hard it sounded like it might be trying to explode through his chest, came through them all, propelling Derek into motion before he could even think. So he was standing, moving in that general direction when Stiles shouted "Lydia, no, use—" and made a move towards her, his hands full of something that glittered oddly in the moonlight.

He was there, not fifteen feet away, when the creature they didn't have a name for lunged, catching Stiles and sending him crashing into a nearby tree, leaving him to crumple in a motionless, awkward heap as it finally caught sight of the three werewolves, all of them now out of hiding and running towards their friends.

Derek had felt the roar ripping through him, leaving his throat with such force he was surprised it didn't actually tear him apart, and he had a moment of primal satisfaction when his claws sliced through the torso of the damned thing, releasing a torrent of viscous green-black fluid.

And then there were claws in his own flesh, fire and glass shards running through every vein, burning and ripping him apart from the inside, and all he could think through the pain, even as he dropped to the ground and the moonlight dimmed into blackness was _Stiles. Stiles. Where is Stiles?_ Derek hoped with everything he had in him that the fading of Stiles's heartbeat was merely the result of his hearing, the last useful sense he had at the moment, going as he went under into a place where there was only pain, where nothing else could reach.

* --- * --- * 

He has no idea how long it lasts, the pain rolling over everything else to the point where he's not even sure he's conscious anymore. His eyes are useless, taking in none of his surroundings, and the only images he sees are in his mind, and they're all Stiles. Derek sees the way he looked this morning, groggy and pink-cheeked as Derek woke him up with a light, playful bite to his shoulder, grinning as he stretched and favored Derek with a murmured "well, someone's in a good mood this morning." He sees the way his head fell back as he gasped, sees the image of Stiles's hands flexing against the wet walls of the shower as Derek worked him over with a well-soaped hand around Stiles's dick this morning, neither of them caring that they were going to be late for brunch with Lydia. He sees the grim determination all over Stiles's face hours later, as he shouldered his backpack, told Derek to be good with the other wolves, kissed him hard with a closed mouth, and taken off running through the woods to meet with Lydia and the Argents.

And of course, he sees Stiles thrown like a ragdoll, crumpled in a heap at the base of the tree, glittering blue and purple stones scattered around him, one still held in his limp hand.

That image stays the longest, and it hurts more than whatever poison is flowing through him.

Derek doesn't know if it's seconds or hours later that other senses come back to him, a little at a time, but he hears the murmur of voices, loud but muffled, like someone's stuffed pillows around a speaker that's turned to high volume, and none of the words make sense. He feels pressure on his body, someone moving him without his permission, and it intensifies the pain so much he thinks he cries out, screams even, but he isn't sure. He still can't see, everything blacker than any night ever has been, and it feels like there are people there, maybe more than one, but he can't read any of their scents enough to place them, even to tell if they're familiar, if their presence means he's safe.

There are more hands on him then; there have to be, if the sensation of painful pressure on his now-identifiable limbs is any indication, and Derek wills his voice to work, tries to ask "where's Stiles?" and "is he okay?" even though he can't hear well enough to make out an answer if anyone were to give him one. He still can't pick out heartbeats, not even the one that feels like it's practically a part of him by this point, and that's what worries him most, that he can't _feel_ Stiles around him, can't sense him at all, and maybe he's thrashing around, because suddenly the hands on his body are firmer, more insistent, and then there's the somewhat familiar sensation of being locked in his own body that he equates with Kanima venom. Then he's falling slowly, drifting as he's swallowed up by something cold, and the last thing he sees is an old memory, Stiles getting further away as Derek sinks under the water of the high school swimming pool, sure in that moment that that'll be the last thing he ever sees.

* --- * --- *

There's a feeling tugging at Derek, washing over his body like a wave with the way it swells and pulls, familiar and soothing in its rhythm. He drifts on it for a while, lets it wash away the worst of the pain—now a steady ache with occasional flares of something sharper that get a hundred times worse the few times he attempts to move—until he realizes he can do more than just feel. He can hear. Not well, not clearly, but it's coming back steadily, and it's when he puts together that the rhythm he's feeling is actually a heartbeat he can hear that he places it as Stiles's heartbeat—a little weary, an undertone of stress and anxiety, but definitely his, and definitely strong—that everything else comes back to him, and he gasps, his body rigid, because this can't be a dream, or a hallucination, it's real, it has to be, or Derek won't be able to—

There are words said then, but Derek can't make them out. He forces himself to listen—they still don't make sense, but he is almost positive it's Stiles's voice, even if there is a note of fear to it, and he tries to relax, he really does, because he doesn't think he'd imagine that detail. But he won't be at ease until he knows, until he can verify he's awake and Stiles is really, truly alive and okay. The voice sounds a little desperate, pleading, and he tries to speak, tries to force his eyes to be open and work, but something jabs into his arm and things go weird, that Kanima paralysis feeling again, only not as strong.

_Drugs_ , Derek thinks hazily. _I'm being drugged_. He can't get a good enough reading with any of his other senses to figure out if he's in a safe place, like Deaton's or the hospital, or if he's being drugged by someone with more sinister intentions, but he does take some measure of comfort in knowing that, at the very least, Stiles is nearby.

When the drugged feeling next recedes, it's Stiles's voice, plain and clear, that replaces it in Derek's awareness. Instead of panicking, forcing himself to sit up and react, Derek takes a moment to gather himself, let everything process. Because he's aware enough now to know that if he gets agitated, he's probably just going to end up drugged again, and the next person who tries that without his permission is going to get at least lightly mauled. So instead, Derek lies still and listens to what Stiles is saying, in case it's important.

It is important. And it's also pretty clear Stiles has no idea Derek's conscious.

"It's really fucked up, y'know?" Stiles is saying, voice somewhere between a whisper and a murmur, like he's been told to keep quiet, or even be silent, but can't quite do it. "I mean, I know we've had close calls before, but this made me realize just _how many_ close calls we really do have, all of us. We're always trying to keep each other and the rest of Beacon Hills safe. But every time we go out and do something like this, get caught in fucked-up situations like this—because there's no one else who can goddamned do it, or wants to—there's no guarantee we'll all come back from it. Yeah, I guess I always sort of knew that, and it's not like we haven't...lost people before. And even last time, the night we drove off and ended up in Vegas, I thought I knew that. I thought I'd made my peace with it, even, dying, I mean. Let me tell you, being sure you're going to be eaten seems like a pretty clear sign that things may not always turn out like you hope. So I thought I'd confronted that fear. And I don't want to die. I don't want to leave my dad totally alone, and I don't want my friends to have to deal with losing me, even if that makes me sound like a totally selfish asshole."

Derek tries to speak, say something smartass about that being okay, because Stiles _is_ a selfish asshole, but somehow makes it an endearing trait sometimes, but his voice won't quite work. And either way, Stiles just sighs, slides his hand into Derek's, where it's lying at his side like dead weight, and keeps going.

"But this?" Stiles says, his voice taking on a hard edge that hints a little at the brittleness of it, like either he or his voice will break if anything pushes back too hard. "No. This was different. Everything's different now. Now, I can't leave you. And you sure as _fuck_ can't leave me, all right? You hear me?"

"No one's leaving anybody," Derek manages to rasp, his voice unrecognizable even to his own ears to the point that he's not actually sure he's said it aloud after all. But the hand around his spasms, squeezing tightly like Stiles is trying to keep him there by holding onto him that way, and he hears Stiles gasp his name. "Yeah, I'm here. Not going anywhere."

"Goddamned right you're not," Stiles says, and there's relief pouring off of him in waves, a discordant note of anger underneath it that Derek doesn't understand right away. It's a little disorienting, and Derek fights to get his eyes open, relieved that things move from blurry to clear after only a few short seconds.

"Your face," Derek murmurs, reaching up a hand to touch lightly at the swollen, bruised mess that is Stiles's left cheek. He's been cleaned up by a professional, there are two stitches just in front of his ear, halfway between temple and jaw, and there are a number of small cuts or scrapes that are just starting to scab over. The swelling makes one of his eyes look puffy and red, and maybe that's the reason at first that Derek doesn't realize Stiles is crying.

"Shut up about my face, asshole," Stiles says, and _now_ Derek can hear the waver in his voice, see the tears gathering and trying to spill over as his throat works. "I'll be fine. But you almost fucking _died_. You can't fucking _do_ that to me, you hear me?"

"I'm sorry." Maybe it's fucked up that he's apologizing for getting hurt, but he doesn't care, because he _is_ sorry, sorry he wasn't able to protect him from getting tossed through the air, sorry he failed at protecting him totally, but mostly he's sorry that he made Stiles worry. He knows what that worry is like. It's what drove him out of that cave where he was hiding, forced him to go to Stiles, make sure he was okay, that he hadn't been—

"Yeah, you'd damn well better be," Stiles huffs, and there's that little bit of anger again, but there's something else under that, hiding beneath it and all the relief, and Derek almost has a handle on it, is moving so that he can get closer, can get to Stiles and figure it out when Stiles balks, letting go of his left hand and backing away, like he's thinking about trying to make a dash for the door so he can block it. "No, hey, stop, lie down, Deaton's gonna be pissed if you try to walk out of here right now, I mean it. He just stepped out to grab something to eat, he'll be right back, so don't think he won't—"

Derek just grunts and gets himself sitting all the way up, even though it makes his head swim. "I'm not leaving," he says again. He's not sure if he means the clinic, or leaving Stiles in general, but either way, it's enough to shut Stiles up, stop the protesting. "I just want to—just—come here for a second, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says after a second, and he does move closer to the table where Derek's now gripping the ledge, trying not to topple over. His sense of balance is seriously fucked up, but he needs to do this, needs Stiles. Stiles, however, stops just short of what Derek's hoping for, and Derek gets the feeling he's been told to be careful, to be gentle, maybe even something else equally as stupid.

"No, _here_ ," Derek tries to clarify. His voice is still weird, and he still has that nagging feeling of needing to really verify that Stiles is okay, because he knows what he saw: Stiles unconscious on the ground. "Please."

It's that last word, barely whispered, that seems to get Stiles moving. He steps forward, eyes flicking everywhere, as if he's afraid of doing something wrong and being in trouble for it, and when Derek starts to slump forward against him, Stiles jerks, body going rigid and heartbeat and scent conveying fear. And that's what had been underneath the anger and relief, Derek realizes. Fear.

"Calm down," Derek whispers, even with his forehead resting on Stiles's shoulder and his nose nearly smashed into Stiles's armpit. "I'm okay."

"You are pretty much the furthest thing from okay, Derek, seriously, are you kidding me?"

He wants to laugh, even though everything still hurts and he's dizzy, because there had been that note of sarcastic disbelief to Stiles's tone, and Derek knows that tone. It's familiar. Just like this is familiar, the warmth of Stiles's skin through his worn-out T-shirt, the feel of his heartbeat, pounding in his chest. Instead of laughing, though, he forces himself to raise his head, lifts his arms and drapes them around Stiles's shoulders. Stiles makes a distressed noise before he seems to give up some internal struggle, and then Stiles's hands are snaking around Derek's waist, locking themselves together at the small of his back, and Stiles is the one to rest his head on Derek's collarbone.

They stay there like that for several moments. It's good for Derek, and more than in a way that just soothes his nerves. The ache in his body starts to fade and the dizziness finally leaves and, as he pulls the two of them a little closer, nuzzling at the spot behind Stiles's ear on the side of his face that's uninjured, he notices that Stiles is trembling. "Hey," he murmurs, running one hand through the hair on the back of Stiles's head in the way he now knows Stiles likes. "It's okay."

Stiles pulls away enough to look Derek in the eye. "I was so fucking scared," is all he says, instead of the argument Derek expects. It's a weak whisper at best, but the enormity of the emotion behind it punches through Derek. Instead of another assurance, Derek nods.

"Yeah," he replies, after a moment. "I know the feeling."

"But you almost—I actually thought you—" Stiles is shaking again, harder, and all Derek can think to do is rub his back as Stiles buries his face against Derek's neck, the words coming out in a rush, hot tears wetting Derek's skin as he rambles: "You were screaming, and things were fuzzy, but I remember that. You were screaming worse than I've ever heard, and thrashing around on the ground, and bleeding everywhere. And then you vomited blood and that black stuff, and Jesus, Derek, your eyes rolled into the back of your head and you just _howled_ , and then you, I don't know, convulsed or something for a few seconds, screamed again, and went totally still. I swear, I thought you were— And I lost my shit. I don't even remember a few moments right after that, but apparently Chris Argent tried to pull me off of you, and then Scott and Isaac had to do it, and all I remember was screaming that you couldn't fucking leave me, and trying to shove Lydia away when she tried to get me to sit still because she thought I might have a head injury, and I didn't even care about that because I didn't know if you—if you were—"

He doesn't say the word this time, but Derek knows it anyway. He holds Stiles tighter, lets him get it out, because that's what he'd want, what he _does_ want, because being able to touch and know it is better than being told. Derek waits a moment before whispering, "The last thing I saw was your body on the ground. That thing threw you into a goddamned tree, and you just _fell_ there, and you weren't moving, and I couldn't really hear anything anymore, but what scared the shit out of me was realizing that I couldn't even hear your heartbeat." He takes a deep breath and forces the sentence out: "I thought you were dead." And then, because he might as well admit to it: "And the only reason I went after that thing so hard was because it went after you."

Stiles makes a heartbroken noise, sobs it into Derek's shoulder, and grips Derek so tight Derek thinks he'd bruise, if he weren't a werewolf. "You weren't supposed to come out of hiding yet. You're an idiot. We had a plan."

"You being dead wasn't part of that plan," Derek huffs, trying to ignore the fact that his eyes burn with tears that want to spill over. He's lost too fucking many people in his life—his parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, Paige, Laura, Erica, Boyd—he can't lose another, and not Stiles, of all those left. "You can't fucking die on me, either, all right? I can't handle that. And I promise you I won't leave you, either."

Stiles looks up at him, his face a mix of something desperate and defiant. "But how can you make that promise? You can't promise that, that's what I'm saying! I want you to, but you can't actually do it, because it's not something we can totally control. You can't legitimately promise something like that!"

There's a fierceness in Stiles's tone that Derek feels mirrored in his own chest, some stubborn, willful thing that doesn't care about the limitations of promises in this physical world, because it feels differently. It's the part that has somehow come to believe in all that metaphysical, emotional, romantic bullshit, about love being some higher power, able to transcend the limits of time and life and death and all that other crap Derek hasn't believed in for nearly a decade. "You think so?"

"I know it. Trust me, Derek, I want you to promise that, and I want to promise it right back, but I _know_ better, even if I wish I didn't. Twelve hours ago, I would have accepted that promise, but I just... _can't_ anymore. So unless you've got something else you can promise instead—"

"I promise you, I am not going to leave you _of my own free will_ ," Derek replies harshly. He's used to arguing with Stiles, they've done that for years, and a month-long marriage hasn't put a total stop to that. "I promise that I will be around as long as I am able, and you are fucking _stuck_ with me and your bad decision to marry someone with as fucked up of a life as I have, because I am not going anywhere, because _I love you_."

Stiles goes completely still, except for his eyes, which widen to an almost comical degree. It probably says a lot about how shitty of a husband or person Derek is, because he knows it's the first time he's actually _said_ those three words. He's awful at words when they really matter, if they're anything more than some flippant comment or bit of sarcasm, so he tends to swallow them down a lot of the time, because it's just easier. He's wanted to say them before, but always thought the timing seemed wrong, or stupid, or that Stiles would just roll his eyes and tell him to shut up. And in any case, Stiles hasn't said those three words, either, for whatever reasons he has.

"That's your comeback?" Stiles asks a few moments later, voice high. It's hard to get a read on the tone, and Derek wonders if he's somehow fucked up, messed up what's been a good thing, all things considered. "You can't promise you won't die on me, so you just...substitute that instead?"

Derek swallows hard. "It's not a substitution," he says haltingly, trying to find the right words. "It's something I promise—I swear to—that you can't throw back and say isn't true, or is something I can't declare." He should have said it a long time ago, maybe even as soon as he realized it himself, with those words, back on their wedding night, before the ceremony was even underway. He's had dozens of chances—their entire time in Las Vegas, when he took care of Stiles when he had the flu, any of the times they've been intimate, or even in the last moments of consciousness at the end of the night, when they're wrapped around each other, languid and drifting out towards sleep, or when they're coming back from that place with the bed warm and the early morning light spilling across their bodies as they lay together, each avoiding having to actually get up out of bed and separate for the day. It chills him, suddenly, to realize that Stiles could have died—that either or both of them could have died—without Derek having said it where Stiles could hear.

"I repeat: you're an idiot," Stiles whispers, but he's moving back into the spot between Derek's legs before tilting his face up and kissing Derek solidly. "But you're my idiot, and I love you, too. And I suck for not saying it, but you know I do, right?"

Derek nods, feeling his worry at fucking everything up start to lift. He doesn't even need to listen for the hint of a lie in Stiles's words, because he has too much evidence, too many examples that prove that Stiles does, just as he hopes Stiles has had enough of the same from him to get the hint, without Derek flat-out stating it before tonight.

"Good." Stiles huffs a little laugh, and it sounds a lot like relief, but also like some sort of giddy, pleased thing. "And, you know, I don't plan on leaving you, either. So, just short of a promise, I'll say what you said—that you're stuck with me, and I'm not going anywhere without you of my own volition." He kisses Derek again, gentle and chaste, and smiles through the tracks of tears that are still on his cheeks. "I'm definitely going to try to not die on you."

Derek thumbs away the moisture under Stiles's eyes and grins softly, feeling a bit more like himself—the version of him he's been for the last couple of months, anyway, which is a version he likes, would like to get used to. "You'd better try really fucking hard. Because there is no way I'm taking over keeping your dad out of the burger joints. I'm in love with you, but I'm not suicidal."

Stiles cracks up, looking more than a little shocked as he does so, and Derek smiles more widely, because that's one of the expressions he likes on Stiles—genuine amusement. He shakes his head and leans against Derek again, still grinning. They stay like that until a door opens, and Stiles looks at the door to the room they're in, then at Derek, who confirms with a nod that, yes, it's just Deaton coming back. "I should probably let him know you're up. That, you know, you didn't...die...on me. Us."

Derek nods, waits till Stiles is to the doorway before casually calling out, "You might also want to let him know that if he comes in here and tries to sedate me again, I'm going to knock him through a wall—in as friendly and grateful a manner as possible."

Stiles whirls around, and it's so, so good to see him smile like that, the scent of worry and fear totally gone now, replaced by a little bit of relief woven into a lot of affection. "Oh yeah, you're definitely going to be fine." He ducks out of the doorway, then makes one of his typical flailing moves, popping his head back in, and gesturing at Derek's...everything. "Also, for the record, that right there is part of why I love you."

"Which part?" Derek calls as Stiles disappears again. He's not entirely sure if he means the smart-ass taunt regarding Deaton, specifically, the fact that he's joking around, or the fact that he's now sitting in the room, shirtless and whole and more or less back to healthy, or something else entirely that's run through Stiles's brain.

"Figure it out!" Stiles yells back. "And if you're right, I'll see if Deaton'll let you have one of the treats he keeps for good patients."

Derek snorts. Tonight has brought a lot of pain and terror, but also opened up his life—their lives—to some good things. Because now they've said it, and Derek thinks they'll say it more often, with whatever wall had been holding it back now broken down. Because he really does love Stiles.

Dog jokes and all.


End file.
